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CLEAR FILMS HOLDS FUNDRAISER TO SUPPORT RESIDENTS OF JUNÍN, ECUADOR

LATIN AMERICAN VIDEO ARCHIVE DATABASE

UPDATE: We hope to have the database up by the end of summer 2009.

In December 2005 the venerable Latin American Video Archive closed its doors after nearly two decades of service. This great lose was lamented by all. Shortly after LAVA’s departure from the distribution world, Las Américas Film Network was established by a former LAVA filmmaker and buyer in order to continue the connection between filmmaker and enthusiast.

While we will never fill the huge void that LAVA has left, we are working diligently to create our own mark and continue in the tradition of LAVA and its founders. It is with that aspiration that we are excited to announce the rebirth of the one of the greatest resources for Latin American film – the LAVA database.

In December, Las Américas Film Network will release a beta version of the database allowing users to update information on titles, ensuring the continued viability of this great resource. While Las Américas only distributes a small portion of these titles, by redeveloping this database we hope to allow our users to make connections with the films they need. The database will need lots of updating, so once it's live, we encourage your participation in making this resource great again.

We want to thank Karen Ranucci and the whole LAVA staff for the development of this database over the many years and for allowing us to make this database active again. We hope this will be a benefit to all.

New Orleans Summer Film Series

In partnership with the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and Zeitgeist Multidisciplinary Arts Center, Las Américas Film Network presents an eight-week summer films series beginning May 22-July 11. The schedule can be found here.

Screenings in August

De NADIE

• Saturday, August 2, 7pm, Unity in the Community, Manassas, VA. This event is free and open to the public.

When Clouds Clear

• Friday, August 15, The Alameda, San Antonio, TX. This event is free and open to the public.

Eréndira, ikikunari

• Saturday, August 16, 5pm, Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, 1201 E. Seventh Street, Room 015, Bloomington, IN. This event is free and open to the public.

Screenings in July

Tocar y luchar

• Wednesday, July 31, 7pm, New Orleans Museum of Art. This event is free and open to the public.

Screenings in April

LAFN Acquires Eréndira, Ikikunari from IMCINE
>> November 2007
Las Américas Film Network acquired the Mexican fictional story Eréndira, Ikikunari. This new film by director Juan Mora Catlett (Return To Aztlan, 1991) tells the story of Eréndira, a young woman from present-day Michoacán who incites her people to rise up and fight against the Spanish. Based on the myth of Eréndira and the Codex Michoacán, this live action tale shot entirely in Purépecha has been nominated for four Mexican Aerial Awards (Academy Awards) and is short-listed to represent Mexico at the U.S. Academy Awards and the Goyas.

Eréndira will be available on 35mm for screening at a theater near you beginning in mid-December. If you are interested in presenting this film in your town, please contact us.

Download the press pack

El Buen Viaje Traveling Film Festival
>>September 2007
Las Américas Film Network will begin offering a permanent traveling film festival called El Buen Viaje (The Good Trip) Film Festival. This festival will allow organizations to rent an all inclusive film festival with posters and other promotional material for one price, from one source! We do all the work, you and your audience sit back and enjoy the movies. We will periodically change the titles in the festival, so always check back to see what new titles are in the list.

More information is available here.

Traveling Immigration Film Series
>>FALL 2008
Las Américas Film Network is pleased to present a four-part, feature-length documentary film series on immigration, exposing sides of the immigration debate you may have never seen. These films go beyond the rhetoric of policy and take an in-depth look at what it means to be migrate and to be an immigrant – whether legal or illegal. Titles include: El Inmigrante, De Nadie, Wetback and Guestworker. Collectively these films have won awards at Sundance, CineQuest, Chicago Latino Film Fest, Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival, and many more.

Poignant, unsettling, and at times disturbing, this festival will bring a new awareness of the immigration debate to your students, community organization and patrons.

Rental of the festival includes posters and postcards advertising the festival, as well as a curriculum guide for each movie. Each festival sponsor will be given space on the website <www.immigrationfilmfest.org> to post information about their screenings. This URL will be printed on all promotional materials. The festival can be screened for audiences as free and open to the public or with a requested donation as a fund raiser. Directors may also be available for screenings at your site. Special discounts for K12 schools are available.
How the festival works:

• Rental of the festival includes donation of each DVD to your organization.

• Each festival comes with posters and postcards advertising the event at your location, as well as discussion materials developed by Breakthrough (a New York based human rights organization).

• Each rental is given web space at www.immigrationfilmfest.org in order to advertise the details of your particular screening.

• Once the festival is rented, the films can be shown whenever you wish, as many times as you wish.

• Each screening can be free and open to the public. No tickets can be sold, but donations can be requested.

• In some cases, the directors may be available for a visit, but this is not included in the rental and negotiations with the directors will be your sole responsibility.

LAFN Introduces Resource Page
>>March 2007
LAFN is pleased to offer a new resource page for filmmakers and fans featuring information and links to film festival, grants, and other significant media related websites. If you would like to submit a page for our consideration, please visit the Resource page.

Favela Rising to screen at the Academy of Motion Pictures
>> March 2007
Congratulations to LAFN filmmakers Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist on their Oscar shortlist nomination for the documentary Favela Rising. In May, the film will be shown as part of the Academy of Motion Pictures Contemporary Documentaries Series. This is a incredible achievement for a very deserving film. All films in the series screen at the Linwood Dunn Theater at the Academy’s Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Admission for all screenings is free. For more information, please visit the Academy's website.

LAFN Filmmakers on Tour
>>January 2007
Bring a filmmaker to your university, school or community center this spring with some of the four LAFN filmmakers currently on tour. Greg Berger and Jill Freidberg team up with Canal de Julio of Mexico to bring you "New Videos from the Frontlines". Directors Raphael Lyon and Andres Ingoglia also hit the road bringing their highly acclaimed "i" the film to universities and grassroots organizations throughout Europe and the west coast. For more information about these tours, please contact us.

“Hanging our Souls on the Walls" - The Legitimization of Clandestine Graffiti in Brazil: A Lesson for Cities?”
Workshops, Lectures and Live Graffiti Demos with Brazilian street and graffiti artists Eder Muniz and Denis Sena, February-March, 2007, New York City
>>December 2006
In 2005 the Mayor of Salvador, Brazil, made a bold move to collaborate with graffiti artists rather than criminalize their messages of resistance. The ‘Projeto Salvador Graffita’ (Salvador Graffiti Project) now employs 43 young artists and is changing the face of the city. The Project strives to empower and hire graffiti artists to replace tag-ridden street-scapes (pichação) with social messages using images and art. The Project simultaneously improves the lives of artists and contributes to the beautification of the city. Two of the most sought after artists in the program, Eder Muniz and Denis Sena, have over ten years experience using the street as their canvas and bring to their work a fierce commitment to improving their local neighborhoods and strengthening civic engagement through teaching youth art as a tool of empowerment. To schedule an event contact Carly Fox, carlitafox@gmail.com, 917-742-6662.

MORE INFO >>>

Call for enteries for LAFN partner FRAMELINE
>> November 2006
Founded in 1977, the Frameline Festival is the world’s oldest and largest queer film festival. Last year we screened over 260 films from 32 countries to an audience of over 60,000. The 31st San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival will be held June 14 – 24, 2007. Narrative, documentary, animated and experimental LGBT films of any length are eligible for submission. Frameline actively seeks out work by directors from underrepresented communities, including LGBT people of color, transgender people, and bisexual people. $27,500 in cash prizes will be awarded to filmmakers:

First Feature Award--$10,000 cash award for First Narrative Feature
Michael J. Berg Documentary Award--$10,000 cash award for Documentary Feature
Festival Audience Awards--Three $2,500 cash awards for Best Feature, Documentary and Short

Regular Deadline: January 12, 2007
Late Deadline: February 2, 2007

Now accepting entries online at Withoutabox.com and at www.frameline.org.

Latin American Environmental Film Festival Seeks Submissions
>> November 2006
Tulane University's Stone Center for Latin American Studies will host its second Environmental Media festival this March. The festival featured over entries and included a cash prize for the Grand Jury winner. For more information, visit: <http://stonecenter.tulane.edu/EFF>.